There Is No Crying In 3 Gun (He-Man National Championship)

Prepare for Glory

Day one of the RO shoot for the 2012 He-Man National Championship in Raton New Mexico, I had identified my weak spots, acknowledged what I need to practice, and set my mind that I would finish this match to the best of my current ability.  Day two of the RO shoot started off with a stage that used all three guns.   So I step up to the line with my rifle slung across my back, pistol on my hip and shotgun in my hand.  I have to get two slugs mixed in with a bunch of stationary clays… a bit of strategy stress!  Time goes beep… miss… pa-ding!  Transition… pa-ding!  Oh my goodness I hit the 2 slugs with 3 shots, oh crap I still have one more slug in the gun.  So I decide to rack it out all authoritative like and move along to the clays.  In the moment of extreme pride and elation I short cycled my shotgun… several times, kicking round after round out, waisting time and therefore tanking my mental game.  I lost focus, got flustered and basically “FUBR” the rest of the stage that started out so promising.

 

"And then I got upset and started to tear up.
What? There is no crying in 3 Gun!"

I did nail the pistol targets, three of them were 40-50 yards away, and those “pa-dings” made me feel better.  But I had to finish up the stage with 12 long range rifle shots from two different positions.  I was very aware this would be an issue even if I didn’t FUBR the first part of this stage.  Well I timed out at 300 seconds,  8 fail to engage, and then the misses to go along with it.  I was devastated.  My husband John was coaching me saying “there is nothing you can do about it now, what’s done is done”.  I knew what went wrong and why.  And then I got upset and started to tear up.  What?  There is no crying in 3 Gun!  I had a flash of Tom Hanks from the movie a League of their own.  (Not saying that John was yelling at me by any stretch)  I just had this overwhelming emotion of frustration and I wanted to cry.   Worst part, it was all on video!  Ugh.   I am supposed to be a role model, a good example, a motivator and I just tanked this stage.  What the heck!!!!

This was a learning moment.   I put aside the feeling of embarrassment because I know I could have done that stage much better with my current ability.  I owned the fact that I timed out and didn’t finish.  I swallowed the tears and didn’t make another excuse.   I decided I will share the video as an example (profanity and all).  I am a role model, a good example and motivator.  My entire mission is to get more women into the shooting sports not with the expectation to be a Julie, Maggie, Diana, Kay, Katie, Athena, the list of exceptional women shooters goes on and one, but the expectation to get out there, try something new, be the best shooter I can be and be proud knowing I am doing something that only a handful of women across the country are doing.   This learning moment was to remind me that I am ok.  That the image of being a “bad ass” is not the goal, being the image of “yes I can” is my goal.    I will save the crying for movies. 

Sidenote- video of this stage coming soon.